Flight

“We used to sit together and watch the planes takeoff. We’d lie on our backs under the stars vignetted by the sick orange glow of the city around us. The trees on top of that little hill did their best block the city from us, but there was little to be done.

"Every night, we’d watch the blinking red and green wingtips and wish for our own. We would guess the airline or the destination. We’d describe the businessman furiously typing an email or the snuggling couple excited for their honeymoon.

"No matter where they went, we knew that it was a trip filled with joys - little or big joys didn’t matter.

"We always promised that someday, some magical day, we would be the ones on the plane, looking out that tiny window. We’d search for our little hill ringed with elderly trees and smile, knowing that dreams do come true. Maybe beneath those canopies would be another couple, just like us, hoping to make it, hoping to get that single ticket away that would make all the difference.”

He stopped speaking to the pines for a moment as they rustled and looked up at red and green beacons streaking across the sky in beautiful tandem. “That must be you.”

And the stars stoically didn’t even blink.